Standard computer interconnects, particularly for personal computers or workstations, may employ a bus such as Peripheral Component Interconnect (“PCI”), Industry Standard Architecture (“ISA”), or Extended ISA (“EISA”). In such interconnects, it is common to attach devices to the bus in a parallel or multi-drop fashion. Before these devices can be made available for a variety of applications, the devices must be detected and configured. These processes are generally performed during a computer's start-up routines. Additionally, in plug-and-play systems, the detection and configuration can occur automatically when a device is connected to the bus after the computer has performed its start-up.